Rapid response team forming to assist Cargill workers

LUBBOCK — Help is coming for the 2,000-plus workers facing a Feb.1 layoff at Cargill Meat Solution’s processing plant in Plainview.

Danny Soliz, director of business development at Workforce Solutions South Plains, is readying a team to assist what he estimated to be more than 2,200 workers.

As rapid response coordinator, Soliz is the first point of contact for employers when layoffs occur.

“We put a team together from Workforce Solutions to have meetings with the personnel affected to make them aware of benefits provided by Workforce Solutions and others out there,” Soliz said. “... The reason we bring the Texas Workforce Commission representative is so that he or she can talk about unemployment benefits, because that’s the first thing they’re going to ask, ‘Where’s my next check coming from?’ That’s where I come in.”

Once all the logistics are worked out, Soliz meets with the company’s human resources manager to set up meetings with the employees.

He will clear his calendar and schedule meetings for day or night to help the Cargill workers, he said.

“When you look at Plainview, that’s a big plant operation that’s closing down, and those people have got to make a living or they wouldn’t be working,” Soliz said. “If they lose their jobs, the bills still come. They’ve still got to eat. We’ve got to take care of them and put them back in the workforce.”

The benefits offered after layoffs are not much, Soliz said. There is only supplemental income to help the employees get through temporarily.

South Plains College spokeswoman Myrna Whitehead said the college learned about the layoffs Thursday.

The college has an extension center in Plainview.

As of early Thursday afternoon, SPC had not been contacted by workers and did not know what it was going to do to help.

Plainview enrollment for fall was 290, Whitehead said.

Jonathan Petty, director of communications at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, said the university had not been contacted by Cargill or its employees.

About 1,800 students were enrolled on the Plainview campus in the fall.